I NEED MORE STUFF! This is the most feature-laden issue yet, and I'd like to keep it this great! Please...if you have anything *remotely* interesting, e-mail it to me at ctyner@awod.com!!! Comments, suggestions, criticisms, pictures, stories, columns, sounds, fan fiction, drawings, MIDIs, interpretive dances...anything would be appreciated! I'm also looking very forward to your character designs!

*Erik Christianson's Page: http://www.ns.net/~kaceac/heman.htmA great place to go for WAVs from the series, plus a few other things. Erik's going to move it to another server, where he gets unlimited space and can do a lot more very soon! Definitely something to look forward to! He also made the cool MIDI file on the He-Fans archives.

*The He-Fans Archives: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/3624/archive.htmlThe place to go if you want to read back issues of the newsletters or get the attachments that came with 'em. For Internet Explorer 2.0 users, you can listen to a MIDI by Erik Christianson in the background!

David Karig roots for the underdog and is making a page for Skeletor (and a little bit of Hordak)! If you have any Hordak stuff you'd like to send him, e-mail David at dkarig@awod.com.

Busta Toon (jamric@globalnet.co.uk) is also working on a web page that'll center around the cartoon more that anything else... I've chatted with Busta for quite a while... He knows a lot about the cartoons and has a video grabber too! I think this'll be a site to look forward to...!

NOTE: I removed the French links and the She-Ra/He-Man popularity link because I didn't think anyone would care... :) They're still available at http://www.he-man.org/ctyner/links.html if you really want 'em...

If you have a He-Man page or are working on one and want it listed, drop me a line at ctyner@awod.com.

<Other On-Line Info>

The IRC Channel for He-Man is #he-man and is on EFNet. Try mIRC (http://www.mirc.com) to get a great freeware IRC client. If you're looking for servers, here are 2 pages that recommend some:

I've gotten rid of He-Bot, the channel bot, in case anyone's wondering what's happened to him. He was more trouble than he was worth...

Tribal Voice (http://www.tribal.com) wrote a program called Pow Wow that allows Windows users to communicate with each other like IRC, only better! I'm sure people who have been reading the newsletter for a while are tired of reading this, but if you use Pow Wow, please e-mail me so we can set up a tribe. It's simple to do so, but I need to know times and dates for the meetings... Thanks!

<Buying, Selling, Trading>

*Disclaimer:* I (Adam Tyner) am not responsible for any claims made in this section. Just covering my butt in case someone tries to sue me...

Hey, there are lots of WTBs... How about some more FS or WTTs? ;>

FS: Some of the playsets and around 40 loose figures. E-mail REGBO@delphi.comfor more info.

FS: A mint Castle Greyskull in the box and a ton of other figures. E-mail stuntboy@ols.net for more specific info.

Recently I was looking through toy price guides and books tryingto see what I'm missing from my Masters of the Universe collection. In one ofthese magazines, I noticed two figures (each worth $50.00 in the package, whichis less than Rotar and Twistoid, but more than all the other figures). Thesetwo figures are not listed in ANY of the other publications (by the way, ALLof these publications always leave out at least one He-Man item from their lists,usually Point Dread for some reason). Anyway, these were listed as being thelast two Masters figures to be released (in 1988) and were listed as "Movie Figures" (Like Saurod, Blade, Gwildor). They are: LASER POWER HE-MAN and LASER LIGHT SKELETOR Ever hear of them? I thought they might be from the new cheesy He-Man 90's line but NONE of the publications list them under the new line. Like I said, only one magazine lists those two figures. I even called Mattel and asked. They had no idea. They tried to look them up on the computer but got nothing, probably because the line is so old. They suggested calling Arco, their sister company which manufactured the figures. I called them and they said, "I'm sorry but that line was discontinued SO long ago that we have NO records on it." (Forthe first time, I'm starting to feel old! He-Man's only been gone for eight years!That's not THAT long!) If you know anything about these, please let me know.If not, maybe some of the He-Fans can help out.

Thanks! Dan the (old) Man

Are these the characters that were sort of like Mattel's 'Captain Power' line from a while back? If any of you know anything about it, e-mail me or Dan... Dan's e-mail address is S15544MM@umassd.edu andmine is listed about 8 or 9 times in this issue... :> Busta Toons told me todaythat he thought he had seen them in boxes instead of the typical see-throughplastic cases...

Just got back from looking through your He-Man page. Pretty neat.The reason I'm writing is simply to ask if you know of any in-jokes in the series.Inside jokes (or "in-jokes") are intentional references or "jokes" that require some kind of explanation or inside information to understand or "get" the "joke".Any characters or places named after someone, any special cameos, any referencesto former roles, series, films, or personal information. Anything you could contributewould be greatly appreciated.

(Busta Toons remembered the Christmas special where Orko gets covered in snow and looks like the Ghostbusters logo...)

One episodes desperately sought episode of the first series is "The Abyss." Here'swhat Busta Toons has to say about it:

"'The Abyss' is about Teela falling into the abyss which surroundsGreyskull... Adam and Man-at-Arms have to rescue her. Anyway, the strange thingabout this episode was when Adam changed into He-Man... Because Teela was inthe Abyss, you understood how the transformation into He-Man actually works...It was a very, very long transformation... So the power of Greyskull must havesomething to do with the Abyss...

MaxReebo12@aol.com is working on a role-playing game for He-Man. It will bebased off of Marvel Super Heroes, and he might work on a Transformers RPG aswell.

<Cartoon Network>

I e-mailed the Cartoon Network and asked about adding He-Man to their line-up... Here's their response:

Dear Adam....thanks for writing! At present we are focusing our energiestowards our World Premiere Toons! But I'll pass your suggestion along to the powers-that-be! Keep on watching!

So I guess this means that it's a possibility! Something else I've found out...I read recently on Usenet that when Filmation went out of business, all of the animation rights for He-Man and She-Ra went back to Mattel...

<What Is Hordak Vs. Orko.Jpg?>

I just got a handheld scanner and thought I'd scan 2 panels from "Masters of the Universe" #9 from Star Comics (Sept. 1987: drawn by Dick Ayers!)... Little background in case you're interested---Orko's friend Dree Elle had been wounded when she saved him from an attack by Hordak upon the palace... He finds these Hate Stones that make him practically all-powerful and uses them to get revenge. Of course, everything turns out alright in the end...

Oh, and if you want to give me a flat-bed scanner or anything, e-mail me... ;>

BTW, this is a long file name... On some systems, it'll be hordak~1.jpg.

<Re-releasing of Action Figures>

John "RunJT@aol.com" gave me some updatesregarding re-releasing the He-Man action figures.

The re-release of the action figures is not definite yet. It is something I (and many others I now know) want very badly to see happen. Tell anyonewho wants to know more about what is in store to just e-mail me with theirquestions comments and suggestions.

Mattel has been a bit bull headed, but give it time. I would like to get mostof the stories [Revamp, which appears in these newsletters] done first. I have all ready planned out the first three series of figures consisting of two assortments of figures. Each assortment will have some where from 6 to 9 figures. I have a plot for an animated TV movie to promote the first series of figures. Here is a sneak peak at what I have planned for Series 1 Assortment A. I can update it with more details later...

I asked Mattel if they have any plans to re-release Masters ofthe Universe. They said: "We have no plans at this time." Oh well. We shouldstart a letter-writing campaign!

Trevor Ward, who works in the Barbie division at Mattel, told me some something else that's interesting...

Any info I hear from the Boys Div is probably outdated, but I think that I heard something to the effect that it was coming back, either for kids or collectors. I am not sure though.

Should we get something organized? There are obviously a lot of you that are still interested in He-Man...

<Just Wondering...>

This is sort of a question of the month section... Busta Toons (jamric@globalnet.co.uk) sent me this question and I thought it would get a lot of response... I'll post every response I get in the next issue!

'Would Masters of the Universe have been better a better cartoon if it were animated by the Japanese?'

Busta suggests this because he's "often wondered that... The Japanese style of animation is superb, but would He-Man have the same style that made the cartoon one of the best remembered? The animators at FILMATION studios weren't the best around, but there were far worse!"

Do any of you remember the contest held where you could design your own character? After posting an article on rec.toys.misc, I got a response from one of the winners!

I saw your posting on rec.toys.misc and was glad to see someone remembered the MOTU contest that ran in the newspaper. I entered twice. I won a third (or maybe second, I can't remember) place prize with a character named VENOM that I believe became made later as Tung Lashor (or else I'm just tooting my own horn). It was a snake like character that had his tongue lash out when you pressed a lever down on his back. Hmmmm. The other character I did was a evil knight that had a glow in the dark skeleton. Anyway, I won the Fright Zone and something else. I don't remember much except that one of the runner ups was a female character named NETTA. Basically she was a fat net with some hair and eyes. I might be able to search my soul tonight and see what else I can remember. In fact, I may still have a picture of the winner and the runner ups back home in Dallas. I go to school in Austin TX right now. It would be really great if the He-man craze came back and all the toys were released but I doubt they would ever do that without changing something to fit the sign of the times. Sadly, the warrior/barbarian craze is over and we have this techno/virtual reality stuff going on. Hope this helps.

In case you don't remember, the winner was a character named 'TheFearless Photon'. Busta Toons suggested to me a while back that I should holda similar contest. I can't really give away any prizes, but the winning charactersubmission (judged by me and a few other people) will be included with the nextnewsletter along with your name and whatever... I'd prefer that you submit itas a graphics file (BMP, JPEG, GIF, etc.) and e-mail it to me... If this isn'tpossible, e-mail me and I'll give you my snail mail address. RunJT@aol.com alsotold me that he may incorporate the winner's character into the "Revamp" storyline!

<New Movie?>

Patrick Algermissen (konnely@nexusprime.org) is working on a new He-Man script that promises to be far better than the first, not-so-memorable film...

He told me he'll keep giving us updates, but he's working on a film right now that'll take up quite a bit of his time...

<Revamp: Part III>

Here's the third part of the Revamp storyline by RunJT@aol.com! Enjoy!

The Origin Of Skeletor: Part 1

The boy who would become Skeletor spent most of the early years of his life as a member of a clan that festered in the swamp pits of Eternia. The humaniodrace that Skeletor belongs to enjoys a slightly longer life span than Eternia's humans, however his early years were anything but enjoyable. His clan was abusive to the cowardly boy, making him feel insigificant and powerless.

When the warlord Hordak and his army, the Horde, entered the land lookingto conquer its inhabitants, Skeletor's clan opposed him. The Horde wiped outthe entire clan with the exception of one boy. Hordak ordered the boy to be spared when he saw the delight the boy took in seeing his people decimated.Hordak took the boy under his wing to be his disciple. The boy studied darkmagic under the Horde's chief wizards and the art of war under Hordak himself.

The Horde remained in the swamp pits and took residence in Snake Mountain,the ancient fortress of the Snake Men. There they found many ancient scrolls and documents telling of an long buried power in Eternia. Hordak became intenton finding the power and using it to conquer his new obsession: the domain of King Randor. On a raid the Horde stumbled across a stockhold of alienweaponry buried in near-by mountians. Hordak mistook this to be thepower the scrolls spoke of. Hordak's disciple, who understood the scrolls better than the others, had his doubts about the weapons being the power, but kept that fact to himself...

One of the most effective weapons was a device that could open a portal to a dimensional void. From the void, one could exit through other portalsleading to various locations on Eternia. Large energy sources were needed to maintain the portals and their coordinates needed to be entered into the device. The scrolls had contained coordinates to a large deposit of energey crystalson a distant continent of Eternia. An artifical source of power was built tomantain the portal on Hordak's continent. Hordak made many successful attackson Randor's kingdom and then would use his portals to escape when the favor of the battle turned against him. The Horde decided to establish another fortress on the distant continent of Eternia. Eternia's rough seas and Randor'sundeveloped seafearing technology made it impossible to attack Hordak back. However Randor refused to give his kingdom up and Hordak was forced to stoop to low blows such as crop burning and kidnapping.

Meanwhile, Hordak's disciple secretly learned that the energy crystals werebeing depleting fast and could probably only support one more portal beforebeing rendered useless. He saw opportunity in this new development and keptthe knowledge to himself, looking for the right moment to act on it.

To Be Continued...

Just a final note on my interpetation of Skeletor: He is not the whinyloser he was in the cartoon. He is a very formidable opponent in both combatand behind the scenes plotting. He is by no means the Dark Vader-ish figurehe was in the He-Man movie. He builds an army slowly but powerfully, making many uneasy alliances or cunning others into joining his cause. Have fun interpreting the hidden clues for the very careful reader and fan...

<More Fan Fiction> If you've been enjoying Revamp, you might be interested in these other works of fan fiction: